Results

It is a high crime (in Scientology) to invalidate the states of
"Clear" or "OT." Thus all that is heard are the widely publicized
success stories, which are all that is permissible to say.

A failed case is said to be possible only due to ethics problems
such as evil intentions. Scientology's claims of results are thus
based on explicitly manipulated and restricted information.

Given the complicity required for participation in the first
place, plus the stigmatization of failed cases, one is effectively
forced to claim and to believe that one has had wins. Disappointments
are more likely to be manifested as confusion and silence rather than
as vocal questions or criticism. The lure remains that maybe the next
level will handle it.

Many of those who escape remain silent, whether from fear,
consciousness of failure, or dim hope for future results. Thus they
leave others to follow blindly in their footsteps and give an
unopposed PR victory to Scientology's letter-writing factories.

Further motive to believe in "results" comes from the high price
of Scientology services (in my experience, approximately $100,000 by
the point of completing "OT Level V"). The high prices, like loaded
words such as "data" and "tech," lend a legitimacy to ideas which
might not fare so well on their own merits apart from this formidable
context. The prices also provide a rite of passage by which one
significantly breaks with wog standards of value and increases
commitment to the group. It becomes more embarrassing to have been
wrong; there is motive to make it look good.

The Church has used inflated membership figures to suggest
widespread acceptance of Scientology's benefits and results. For
example, the 1978 book, What is Scientology?, claimed a
worldwide membership for the Church of 5,437,000.

In 1984 a new official membership organization was made a
prerequisite for receiving Church services. This cost money, so
wildly inflated membership figures could not be used -- or no one
would believe the Church's urgent need for money. After a year of
recruitment, the International Association of Scientologists (IAS)
claimed membership of 12,000. Jon Atack estimated in 1990 that
worldwide membership was probably close to 100,000 by now due to a
recent advertising blitz. (I am personally acquainted with the Hard
Sell techniques that were used to sell $2,000 memberships in 1986.)

An appearance of result can be produced by misattributing the
result of some other activity. Several books on Scientology have
described working conditions and pay scales in the Sea Org. Is forced
labor extorted by "heavy ethics" really the better life promised by
Scientology?

Likewise in Scientology's front organizations, results attributed
to "Hubbard Management Technology" may actually result from very
ordinary brute force methods applied under group pressure.

For example, a March, 1990 article in Podiatry Today asks the
practitioner:

Do you feel comfortable asking a patient to call and refer a friend to
you while that patient is still in your office for treatment? Or
sending a card to a friend before their own procedure is completed?
Do you feel comfortable using tone scales to manipulate a person's
response to your treatment proposal? Or talking about money and
payment methods before discussing illness and treatment methods? Do
you feel comfortable using tried and true hard sell methodologies
within the doctor-patient relationship?

That same article notes that consulting firms licensed by WISE
paid ten to fifteen percent of their gross revenue to WISE, which then
"by extension, flowed into Church of Scientology coffers." In other
words, Hard Sell is used to to get medical practitioners to use Hard
Sell on their patients to get money to give to Scientology. That is
"management technology."

One's ordinary work may come to be understood as part of
Scientology because it is done in that context. The usual group
pressures ("gung ho") are relied upon to cement the misidentification.
Problems of organization and production can be handled
enthusiastically and creatively, without having to pay much attention
to what is being organized or produced. The technical activity
itself, and the person's expertise, become the focus. The goal
becomes to do a good job, and a good person will produce a result.
The Church of Scientology (or an entity under its control) becomes an
employer. The person's work habits become an area of security to fall
back on when doubts or questions occur about more controversial topics
-- a defense familiar in many industries, from nuclear weapons to
advertising. One can feel more normal while preoccupied in dealing
with UPS, printing companies, airlines, etc.

Just as being an auditor is asserted to be a legitimate
profession, a job like many others, so the registrar can fall back on
an image of himself as a dedicated sales professional doing right by
his employer. In both cases, close focus on the task at hand becomes
a means of avoiding notice of expensive pseudo-therapy, Hard Sell,
abused clients, alienation of friends and family, and disrupted lives.
One just "does a good job" and "increases production."

At each step, Hard Sell tactics assert some absolute which
justifies disregarding any other concerns. At early levels it may be
solving some problem or increasing ability. Later it becomes "getting
stats up" or ensuring the future of Scientology. It may be averting
nuclear war, getting rid of body thetans, or ensuring that Scientology
controls sufficient resources, when the time comes, to repel the
Markabian invaders from outer space -- anything to invalidate the
mark's objections, to get the stat, to get the check.

The auditor is responsible for delivering a by-the-book correct
session -- not for whether his preclear gets better. There is neither
motive nor occasion to look closely at the actual result. But there
is plenty of motive to stay busy and Make Money.

Scientology's claim to offer help for whatever ails you is
possible because any situation is "handled" in the same way: transfer
the person's attention away from the immediacy of his own situation
and onto group loyalty and participation (busy, busy) which will
encourage him to agree that results exist and are as miraculous as
claimed.

Anyone doing Scientology and amenable to the new identity thus
imposed could claim, at least temporarily, to have solved his problem
by participation in Scientology. For example, a marital problem might
be solved by doing Scientology so that hats, ethics officers,
confidential data, special knowledge, and so forth constantly are
interposed between the individuals involved, who then put attention on
Scientology rather than on each other: I will help us by going off and
doing something with them which I can't tell you about because it
happened in session so it is confidential.

You, then, are supposed to cooperatively consider it fixed because
I went off and did some Scientology. Otherwise you are not acting
validly as a group member. You too must remove attention from
whatever was wrong and put it onto Scientology (more gung ho), so as
to make it not matter that whatever was wrong is still right where it
was. It is fixed because we both did ethics conditions and wrote
success stories and then got very busy: a therapy of distraction and
misdirection which works when we all agree that it did.

A classic form of this is to do something unethical to get money
to give to the Church, then fix everything by doing an ethics handling
-- but keep the money! In a similar way, the Church will punish
overly coercive members who have created a flap, make claims of
reform, then recruit others to do the same things again.

The group member will appear inadequate or disloyal if he does not
find some way to agree that the asserted result occurred and the
situation is fixed. Success stories are a means by which one ranks
and assesses status with reference to the Bridge, a complex chart of
abilities supposedly gained at various levels of one's Scientology
career. To fail to claim to have achieved the specified results would
discredit one's status as a Scientologist and invite expensive
remedial action. Thus one must come to see oneself and demand to be
treated by others as an unusually sane, capable and rational person --
one with extraordinary ability to communicate, who has no problem with
problems, one not troubled by past upsets in life, and so on. It is
discrediting to admit having a problem that was supposed to have been
"handled." At the moment of attestation you said it was handled. Are
you now saying that Scientology does not work, or that you lied in
your attestation? A way is needed, perhaps a divorce or most commonly
by joining staff, to deny that such situations still exist. By doing
Scientology (busy, busy) one gains an avenue for action that simply
bypasses the circumstances of own prior life, so that such questions
simply will not arise -- the ultimate invalidation.

OT abilities are least likely to be challenged by other
Scientologists who have similar ego needs, most likely to be seen as
delusional by those who have known the person well over time. Lack of
real change, and evident failure, can be covered up by staying in the
group and doing Scientology.

The more vain the person or fragile the ego, the more tightly and
desperately held (internalized, believed) are the claims made for
personal condition and ability, and the more threatening any challenge
to those claims. An attack upon one's religion becomes emotionally
synonymous with an attack on one's personal vanity and self-concept.

The group-think presumption that Scientologists will succeed
better than other people encourages unequal standards of evidence and
validity, giving benefit of the doubt on the one hand and withholding
it on the other. If one begins to act more like a Scientologist, that
tends to be perceived as improvement per se. Likewise, "he's better
now" tends to mean that he is acting more like a Scientologist.
Realistic assessment becomes impossible, the real accomplishments of
others are minimized, and the ordinariness of trained Scientologists
is not to be noticed.

Claims of success by Scientology or due to Scientology are
supposed to be accepted at face value -- including the "I was thinking
about my sister in Terra Haute and just then she called" type of thing
which is common in promotional materials. Asserted but unverified
claims are particularly evident in areas of education, drug
rehabilitation, business management, and communication skills, where
the Church makes claim to unique competence which is widely asserted
but which I have never seen supported by evidence.

An amusing instance of claims for Scientology occurs in a book
which we gave our employees for Christmas several years ago. It
stated that with the amazing discoveries of Dianetics and Scientology
there is no reason for anyone ever to wear glasses. This became a
standing joke among the rest of our employees because all five of our
Scientologists wore glasses.

If the claims made by Scientology were in any way true, the world
and especially Scientology would be full of virtual supermen. I have
not observed any, and I have observed people who should have been
supermen if there were any -- in fact I should be one.

Social status such as "OT" or upper management enable some to pass
within the group as superior beings without having to show anything
more than an air of confidence.

In those I knew best, I saw no positive result not attributable to
pressure-cooker motivation, experience, and the maturing of already
existing ability. While those things may be valuable, they are not
the claims made by and for Scientology. Certainly I saw no special
qualities which cannot be observed also in non-Scientologists. The
most predictable result I observed was a temporary elation following
completion of a service.

There are negative results too. We might ask what it costs a
person to believe, and act on the belief, that Scientology is
scientific, that it is man's only hope, that only Mr. Hubbard got it
all right, that nothing is as important as your status with
Scientology, that everything associated with Scientology is always an
emergency and urgent and mandatory, that the rest of the world lacks
the tech and can be saved only by getting into Scientology, or any of
hundreds of other examples from this bizarre ethos.

What relevance to anyone else does such a person have (except
within the group's bubble)? What better life could such a person have
created, on a more sane basis? And what is the cost to that person's
associates?

A six year old child described being told by her Scientologist
mother, when you get to higher courses you can be kind of dead and
then if you don't like where you are, you can get to be somewhere else
just by thinking about it.

Evaluation of result is pretty much bypassed in practice. The
selling of cult membership relies on other means. Astounding results
are widely asserted in promotional materials, to provide a needed
rationale, but actual evidence is not needed for those already in the
maw of Hard Sell and heavy ethics. Neither is it needed to attract
new raw meat, the supply of which is assured by broad dissemination to
the public at large, and playing the odds. There will always be some
who will try an introductory course or service and prove defenseless
to a new agenda for their lives -- especially if the cult is able to
suppress free and public information about itself, and if those who
have been there remain silent.